The Questions that Nag Me (About Docking and FW)

If FW pilots can have their docking taken away, but neutrals cannot, then why wont people just leave FW? Then they can dock wherever they want, and continue to shoot each other as pirates. In fact, they'll have more targets now that they're not in a militia....

The missing ingredient to all of this comes down to ISK. FW pilots talk a lot about good fights and small-gang warfare, but many people are in FW for the ISK making opportunities.

To give some perspective, you can mission the LP for a Fleet Stabber in two lvl 4 missions, with some LP to spare. People who know what they're doing and have a good setup --maybe a fast alt to speed tank while their main brings in damage, etc., can burn through 12 lvl-4 missions in as little as 2 hours.

It is not uncommon, or unusual for a good mission-running FW pilot to make 750mil+  isk in an afternoon/evening of dedicated, solo mission running.


With new additions to the LP store stuch as Datacores, and LP gains through pvp and plexing, I believe the theory is that the lucrative potential of FW will be too great for people to resist, and will make the risk of fighting over stations well worth it.

The Minmatar Reveal New Technology

The Minmatar, particularly the members of Late Night Alliance, have developped several technologies to aid in the war against the Amarr. These technologies are advanced and have taken significant time to develop.

We've previously attempted to keep these things secret, however with the influx of Amarr whispering amongst themselves in local about the Minmatar blobbing and/or overshipping,it is obvious that they are onto our secret techniques, or will soon be privy to them.

Tiered Occupancy: Victory Points

If you haven't read the general overview, please read it here.

One of the greatest hurdles of implementing tiered occupancy will be to work it into the current system. This will be a tricky endeavor, considering the current way that Victory Points and system Occupancy work.

The Current System

Right now, in order to take Occupancy of a system you must achieve a certain number of Victory Points. Victory Points are only gained by offensively taking 'dungeons' (plexes) within a system. The current occupant of the system can prevent their system being taken by defending these 'dungeons.' When a dungeon is successfully defended, the attacker loses victory points from their 'tally' for that system.

Notice: Current occupants do no gain Victory Points. They defend the system by preventing the attacker from gaining VP, and by removing VP from them.

The Matter of Docking

My alliance had a long (and rather animated) conversation on TS3 last night regarding docking rights--pros and cons for different parties and how to make it work. Some people were completely against docking restrictions, no matter how much we fixed some underlying issues, and others didn't seem to care one way or the other.

I think that one thing I've heard twice now (both from an alliance mate on the EVE Online forum post, and on a comment on this blog) is that not allowing neutrals to dock is problematic ---From one perspective, it could make FW space more 'FW only' where less and less neutrals come around, and from another perspective, it forces a player into Faction War if they want to dock in the system, or already have assets and live there.

Considering that the focus of a lot of what I've been looking at for fixing FW has been to offer more choices and less restrictions, this perspective of forcing neutrals into unwanted gameplay is very troubling to me, and an extremely valid point.

FW is a Sandbox, Too

The Overview

When you delve into FW mechanics you will notice that Faction War, as we know and love it, is really the 'dumping together' of three distinct mechanics.

• 1st, you have missioning. Currently, missioning only rarely inspires pvp and is the main (and almost exclusive) way you can make ISK in FW.
• 2nd, you have the general 'wardec' that implements the pvp aspect of FW, and
• 3rd, you have plexing which is currently directly related to taking occupancy of a faction's system.

In general, these three aspects of FW have very different, predefined purposes that are only loosely connected to each other. The largest connection is really between plexing and PVP, where many people engage in plexing for the sole purpose of getting a fight. However, pvping in and of itself does not influence occupancy. (You can plex for occupancy without any pvp occurring.)

This seems somewhat limited to me, and part of my goal in coming up with an idea for FW was to increase the number of choices pilots have. Telling a pilot he must do 'this' or 'that' to achieve a specific goal seems very un-sandboxy to me.

The current system could be graphed as this:

The goal? To turn the graph into something like this:

Several parts of my suggestion addressed this.

• making more things affect occupancy gives players more options. This also correlates to the logical 'storyline' aspect of Factional Warfare, where any pvp engagements should affect the war somehow. In general, it increases the immersion factor of Faction War.

• moving lvl 4 agents to space adds a degree of risk to missioning, that may make missioning a proponent of PVP. (People will camp/protect/fight over agent location in a similarly casual way they currently fight over plexes.)

• giving LP for plexing and pvp while increasing the risk to mission running will balance some of the risk vs reward, and encourage more people to engage in different activities. Just like you have many opportunities to make isk in other aspects of EVE (nullsec pilots gain systems to access to better ore for mining, better exploration sites, ratting, etc) you should also have options in Faction War for making ISK in relation to the game mechanic.

In many ways, the bottom arrow on the last graph could be drawn to point both directions: with this structure, players could plex to make isk to fund pvp, or pvp to take occupancy to gain access to missions....etc. The point being, you would have a lot of options for gameplay. 

Who knows all the ways that players would go? And that's the point.



Related Posts:


Fixing Faction War: The Big Picture
The Matter of Docking
Tiered Occupancy: Victory Points

Fixing Faction War: The Big Picture

Originally, I was going to throw this idea out. However, the more I thought about it and 'tweaked' it the more I liked it. Then, I shared it with some militia friends, and they seemed to like it to--actually quite a bit (what parts I shared)--so I revisited portions of it, and fleshed out some of the details I was lacking.

A lot of my ideas includes changes that are interconnected, so in the beginning I'm going to give a high-level overview of it. Then I will break each piece down to talk about specific details, pros/cons, what each piece 'accomplishes' and etc.

For Example,

Yesterday afternoon, the Amarr took occupancy of Huola.

"This was obviously a CTA for the Amarr." said one of the Minmatar leaders. "This was more of a planned attack and less of a 'lets randomly plex today' sort of thing. Not to mention that it was purposefully carried out during a time zone when most of the Amarr who defend huola were still at their day jobs."

Though I was not at the fight, I heard about it in great detail by several people. Apparently, non militia were batphoned in by both sides.

The Amarr victory aside, the action displayed some inherent issues with the plexing system--a sentiment shared by Minmatar and Amarr alike.

For PL: How to Spy on Militia

After Smurfsbrigade and the Gallente Shadow People took down a Titan, there were many comments thrown around about how 'PL is probably going to spy more on FW now' and etc. Even Jester over at Jester's Trek made a comment to that effect, warning FW CEOs to be wary.

The rise of formidable militia capital fleets is going to be a serious threat against Pandemic Legion, especially if they continue to live and operate from Amamake. Militia may also be a significant threat to major nullsec alliances who dare to deploy, operate, or travel near FW 'hot zones.'

The Hard Questions: Should FW be About Small-Gang PVP?

One of the biggest fears of many FW pilots is that FW will go the way of nullsec, with it's large structure destroying fleets and blob tactics.

"Keep the nullsec blob out of FW PVP!"

"FW is Fightclub. Preserve small-gang pew!"

But, is FW PVP currently a base for small-gang pvpers because the mechanics are condusive to it, or do we travel with small gangs because there's simply not that many people in Faction War anymore?

The Hard Questions: LP for PVP in FW?

A cheer broke out on coms when CCP talked about issuing LP for pvp kills in the upcoming Faction War expansion.

This is the first time that CCP will implement something in the game that will directly give you some sort of compensation for killing other players.

And people love the idea.

I love the idea. Because I'm a PVPer and the idea that I could get 'paid' to do something I do anyway is really cool.

The Hard Questions: What is Faction War?

Over the last couple days, I've struggled to answer the question, "What is Faction War?"

To be honest, I got bored trying to figure it out. I looked through some EVE lore, and couldn't find a whole lot on even why we went to war except that some dude in the Gallente or Caldari drove some mothership into a station. As far as the Minmatar/Amarr conflict, I couldn't find much as to what sparked an all out conflict. I asked around, and I think the best answer I was given was through the eloquence of a corpmate:

Kobal Nerios > wernt we slaves? and we escaped
Kobal Nerios > and boom warrrrrr

I was a little disappointed, as I was hoping to find some sort of storyline hint at what the primary goals of these nations at war really are. Some sort of fuel to say 'hey, according to the storyling, we want this from each other as factions, so it makes sense to take FW in this direction...etc.'

But I found no answers.

Sand Castles

The single most largest mistake CCP is making with regards to Faction War, is presuming to think that Faction War should be about taking space.

Faction War is not about taking space. Faction War is about war --battles, pvp, and action.

Only when CCP understands this will they be able to truly focus on changes that could make Faction War great.



Forcing space-taking game mechanics on Faction War pilots is like telling a kid in a sandbox that he can only build castles.

Militia Reacts Part 1: Station Games

One of the main criticisms of Faction War mechanics is that there are no rewards or incentives for taking occupancy of systems. In their discussion of upcoming changes to FW, CCP put forth the plan to remove occupancy altogether and allow a militia to take full sovereignty of a system instead. Essentially, this would prevent the non-sov holding militia to lose access to all stations within that system.

However, neutrals would not be affected and could dock normally.

Faction War Changes

Faction War Changes

CCP Navigator posted a forums post about proposed FW changes.

I posted a few questions on the post regarding how they are going to implement the station dockin restriction stuff (and how or what triggers this) as well as questions about the sovereignty stuff that sounds an awful lot like they're heading toward making FW like a mini nullsec. However, some of the info they gave on the post was somewhat vague, so we'll see.

Hans Jagerblitzen replied on the post that he was going to wait until he had more info and read more about it before commenting...which made sense since it was really quite...vague.

However, no matter what, I forsee raging of some kind in FWs future. Either the RPers will be raging, or the pirate FW pilots, or the small-gangsters, or the plexers or someone. There's no way that CCP can make us all happy.

Simply no way.



I was kind of disappointed that they didn't announce something more shocking...like....a four way war or something.

We Are Militia

PL Loses a Titan: Reading Between the Lines

It always amazes me, how in one breath militia pilots talk about small-gang warfare without all the political drama crap of nullsec blocs, and in the next they are talking about some drama bomb militia has recently unleashed. (Or they are screaming the drama from the top of their lungs.)

This weekend, members of militia downed a Pandemic Legion titan, and I wrote about it here. It is true that leadership from all four militias met together to discuss such an operation. It is true that they met to discuss a plan hatched by Amarrian FC, Predator Elite. It is true that the plans that were discussed were not the plans that ended up happening. It is true that the titan kill ended up costing those involved significantly in lost Dreadnaughts.

However, it was not the whole story.The whole story is a story of politics. It is a story of inter-militia drama and back stabbing. It is a story of corruption, hatred, and war.

Worth a Chuckle

Some people think most militia members are noobs. Or idiots. Day after day, week after week, we point to parts of our killboard and say, "Look! See, not a noob!" 

When we wander around 0.0, killing everything in our path and losing hardly anything, we point at the battlereports and proclaim, "See! Who you calling noob?"

When a solo member of our group wanders around low-sec or null-sec killing entire gangs of enemies, we point to these occasions and laugh at the skeptics, "You can think what you want. You obviously don't have a clue."

Then, every once in a while a situation comes along where I take a step back and think about how it must look to the outside. How it must look with no knowledge of the kills of the last hour or two, no knowledge of killboards, what's going on on coms, or personal skill. I just see that snapshot at that time and I see a faint glimmer of what others must see....

Earlier today, I wrote a story about a roaming bunch of Minmatar wandering around Providence nullsec. I forgot one important (and hilarious) part of the story that I will now share with you.

Fraps: Minmatar Vs. Amarr Cap Fight

Noir. vs. Minmatar/Amarr Militia Fraps

An alliance mate made a Fraps video of the Noir. vs. militia fight. Enjoy!

In Rust We Trust

A New Day

The Amarr and Minmatar may have had a temporary truce Sat. night for their escapades against Noir., but you couldn't tell the next day as Amarr and Minmatar fleets clashed in one of the biggest militia capital fights of this year.

Fleets on both sides numbered in the 70s, and it seemed like all of militia was leaking out of the woodwork for a weekend brawl.

The Amarr held nothing back, bringing 10 Guardians and a sizeable battleship fleet, complete with Bhaalgorns. The Minmatar had a significant number of sub cap logistics as well, along with an anti-tackle contingent brought by Minmatar newcomers -EM- Alliance.